Hail Mary
by Crunch
Summary: Let me tell you, a guy's brain does some crazy things when he's staring down the barrel of a gun. RR?


Hail Mary: by Crunch  
  
Alright, I haven't posted in a light year or so, but I think I remember how this goes. . . I write a fermented block of crap, and you review it??? No???  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even this witty review.  
  
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Let me tell you, a guy's brain does some crazy thing when he's staring down the barrel of a gun. It's not at all like you'd think, like some big God- fearing episode, with trumpets tooting and harps twanging and the glory of the Big Man Upstairs shining down on your unworthy soul. That's not why people pray when the lead starts squirting and the bodies start flying. Least I don't think it is- I guess it's different for every Joe. But for a normal guy, the kind of guy who'd be likely to end up with a gun in his forehead, it's a real trip.  
  
See, the first place your mind goes is the future. That's a kick, isn't it? You'd think it'd be the past before the future, I swear you would. But all the same, you start thinking about everything you've got to do, everything you WILL do, if only that trigger stays stiff, if only your whatchama call it. . . your guardian angel will smile down on you tonight.  
  
Things like. . . like you'll ride in a real carriage, and not just on the way to the clink. You WILL see a show in one of them fancy opera houses, with real silk seats and real pretty women. You WILL play more stickball with your little brothers. You'll eat more salads, you'll kiss that sweet little bird of a thing who hangs by the Distribution office every morning, and you'll take more walks at night, just for the hell of walking. Just to feel the stones beneath your feet and your legs beneath your body. . . your young, strong, ALIVE body. You'll make something of yourself- really, you will. You'll be somebody, somebody big; at least a helluva lot bigger than you are now. You'll take a bath, a real bath, in a real tub, cause you haven't been clean in years. You'll have a sex a WHOLE lot more. Things like that. . . thing's you've been waiting your life to do, but you just never got around to living 'em.  
  
Well, that's the first place your brain shoots off to- if you're Joe normal, that is, and not one of those Jesus types. The second place is the past. You start wondering how you got to be where you are. You, the winner of the grade two spelling bee at Avery Primary. You, the third son of Irena and Michael, may they rest in peace. You, the best swimmer in the Conlon family, who loved his momma and his dog Alby and the color blue, most especially sky blue. You, who still loves the color sky blue. You wonder how you of all people ended up here, bent down like a guy pissing in the wind, shaking in your trousers and breathing in crumbled cobblestone by the quart.  
  
That's just how it was my first time, see. I know, it sounds like I'm bragging about the first time I made it with a girl, but that's how I remember it, I swear it is. See, it was big, and it was a rush. Really, you're never so alive like when you're staring down a gun barrel.  
  
Now, the guy behind the pistol was shaking. . . he wasn't so pumped as me. I think he was shaking worse than I was, which made me even twitchier.  
  
* * *  
  
"Arms up! Don't move, ya dirty little Mick, don't even fuckin' move!" He wiped his coat sleeve across his eyebrows, where sweat was pooling by the gallon. The little gray gun in his hands shook like a Goddamn San Diego Earthquake, the kind California Stevens yaps so much about, and his loafers scuttled across the sidewalk as he came towards me. He was nervous, but me. . . let me tell you, I wasn't scared at all, and that's the truth of it.  
  
"Jesus, I wasn't even doin' nothing. . ."  
  
"Don't move!" He shrieked a little when my hands wobbled towards the sky.  
  
"You told me to put my arms up!"  
  
"I told you not to move!" The guy kept twitching and shaking, his feet doing that queer little shuffle back and forth, and his neck snapping around like a slingshot; looking for his buddy, I guess. "Just stay there- move and you're dead, kid- you just stay right there. . ."  
  
I giggled. I know Brooklyn boys don't giggle a whole lot, but I did, and Mister Trigger-happy snapped his neck around so hard, I think his face got there before his eyeballs did.  
  
"Something funny? You think this is funny?"  
  
"Come on, you can't shoot me. All's I did was try and get warm."  
  
"Yeah, sure thing, Mick. This here's breaking and entering, and I'm gonna haul your backside to the Refuge when my partner gets back from his beat.  
  
"I didn't break and enter nothing. . . what, you mean this window? It was broke when I got here. I was usin' the brick to work meself out. And I aint no Mick, neither. . ."  
  
"Oh yeah? Where'd you get them pretty green eyes, in Jersey? Nothin' but a bunch of welchers, the lot of you."  
  
"Welchers? Say that when me hands aint up. . ."  
  
"Don't MOVE!" This time he stomped towards me, gun hands shivering like the Cuban vendors that sell their own boots on picnic blankets near Dyker Heights. I wasn't scared, and I wasn't no dirty Mick, so I folded my arms to show him I wasn't going quiet like. Bad move- it was the quickness that startled him, I guess. His face turned red-hot and swollen, like some puffed up fish, and he just kept getting louder; from this close, the sweat on his forehead stood out like bullets. Twitchy little bastard with a badge.  
  
"Down! Get down now!" And that's when it started- while his neck was doing it's rubber-band gig in the search for his partner, and the knees of my trousers were splattered into the street, and his gun danced around my forehead- that's when my brain started jumping. That's when I started thinking '' I WILL play more stickball with my little brothers, I WILL eat more salads, I'll kiss that sweet little bird of a thing who hangs by the Distribution office every morning, and I'll take more walks at . . ."  
  
"The hell are you doing, ya bum?" Funny thing happened then- I realized my palms were over my head, and I was mumbling the Goddamn hail Mary, even though I only knew the half of it Ma taught me on the ship from Ireland when I was almost a baby, and the fuckin' crooked Copper was giving me the once-over with a queer look in his eyes, but hell, I was only ten. . . I was only ten. . . I knew I was being a dumb ass, praying like I was, cause on the inside I knew I was being a fool, and on the inside, I knew he wouldn't shoot me, he really wouldn't, he probably wouldn't. . .  
  
* * *  
  
Like I said, it's different for everyone, I'm sure. That was a long time ago- been lots of stickball games and salads and sex since then. I only bring it up because the guy in front of me now, some lug of a kid with a body like a barrel and head like a fish's, bent down like he's pissing in the wind, shaking in his trousers and breathing in crumbled cobblestones by the quart, is praying. He's actually praying. Least I think he is.  
  
It's different for everyone. I know, because the gun in my hands, the very gun that's pointed at his forehead, is steady as a rock.  
  
And I'm not even shaking.  
  
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Wow, I have been out of this game for a LONG time. Someone remind me how good if feels to get a review, will ya? 


End file.
